EUROSTAT
Directorate D: Single Market, Employment and Social statistics
Unit D-5: Education and culture /
Doc. ESTAT/D5/2004-CULT-30-EN
Version 19.02.2004
Short Conclusions
Working Group on Culture Statistics
Meeting of the
Culture Statistics
Working Group
Luxembourg, 4 and 5 March 2004
Culture Statistics Working Group
Luxembourg, 4-5 March 2004
Short Conclusions
1.The meeting has been held at a turning point for Culture Statistics. The objectiveswere:
1.a.to review the present situation as far as the present policy request is concerned and to take stock of what Eurostat and the Culture Statistics WG have achieved and of relevant recent developments at the international level.
1.b.to plan the future by identifying areas to cover taking into account the current and future policy interest. Among them the areas for which development work is needed at EU level (ESS sources) should be identified, making maximum use of synergies at the international level. The introduction of tools, e.g. of a legal basis, in order to establish a sustainable system for the production and dissemination of statistics on culture was also discussed
2.The completion of the work of the 3 existing Task Forces of the Culture Statistics Working Group (agenda item 3)
2.1.TF Participation
Achievements:
Questions on participation have been refined and implemented in a Eurobarometer in EU and in candidate countries confirming the quality of the questions. Although the statistical quality of the results may be questioned their relevance has been confirmed by the interest they have provoked in European Press and in policy discussions at national and international level. It has also been proposed to include a module on Cultural Participation in a European Adult Education Survey, which is currently under development. In parallel the TF has compiled data coming from national soruces of the TF Member Countries.
Pending issues:
The WG agreed on the need to evaluate the implementation of the questionnaire on Cultural Participation through the Eurobarometer opinion survey.
On the basis of the results of this evaluation a Handbook for a culture module to include in national surveys should be developed. In parallel appropriate vehicle surveys for the module should be identified at the EU level (e.g. Adult Education Survey, Time Use Survey, EU-SILC (Statistics on Income and Living Conditions) etc). The implementation of the core module in different household surveys, starting with AES, should be promoted and monitored.
The part concerning the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) should follow the developments in the Information Society Statistics area.
Several countries argued that the module should be extended in the future to cover also aspects of social participation.
Next steps:
It has been agreed that no Task Force is currently needed on this area. The most urgent need was to evaluate the Eurobarometer experiment and draw conclusions on the questions and their implementation. After this action (to be implemented through a call for tender to be launched by Eurostat) is completed, the need for a TF on participation could be discussed.
Concerning dissemination, Eurostat should see to the publication of the results of the Eurobarometer for both candidate and EU Member States compiled in only one publication. The tables presenting results from national surveys compiled by the TF should be made available on the public ETCS[1] circa site.
2.2.TF Employment
Achievements:
The work for the identification and refinement of cultural sectors in the NACE classification and cultural occupations in the ISCO classification as well as the identification of cultural employment through their crossing can be considered as completed. The estimation method developed on this basis has been implemented in the Labour Force Survey and there was an agreement on the approach to use for cultural activities, cultural occupations and (through crossing) for cultural employment.
Pending issues:
Countries that were not members of the TF on Employment were asked to check the figures produced using the estimation method for their countries and provide feedback to the TF co-ordinator (email: ) by the end of March.
Next steps:
The WG agreed that no Task Force was needed in this area. The WG underlined the strategic importance of the publication of results as soon as possible. Therefore Eurostat should take over the implementation of the methodology proposed in view of the production of annual aggregated results on Cultural Employment from the LFS. A first publication should be done in summer this year.
In parallel the quality of the estimation method used should be further studied while alternative methods could also be explored.
Eurostat and the WG should monitor closely and contribute actively in the forthcoming revision of the NACE and ISCO classifications as far as the coverage of the Cultural field is concerned. (see under “Overall Conclusions”)
2.3.TF Expenditure
Achievements:
A methodological framework has been developed for statistics on public financing and expenditure on Culture which included the definition of the cultural field classified by domains, the definition of different types of expenditure as well as the economic classification and levels of government to use. A survey on public expenditure on culture has been conducted in 2003: 32 countries have received the questionnaire and 18 have provided complete or partial replies. These replies and the data they included constitute a major improvement of the knowledge base on this complex area.
Pending issues:
The main difficulties/gaps identified during the implementation of the methodology through the survey include the following: statistics for all levels of government, data on transfers (intergovernmental in particular), data on receipts, breakdown by cultural domains.
Therefore the TF has proposed the following objectives for improvement in the short term: local government expenditure, expenditure by ministries other than the Ministry of Culture, intergovernmental transfers, direct receipts. In the longer term the following areas need to be further explored: use of data from other sources (especially through the improvement of COFOG[2]), indirect expenditure, use of European funds (especially structural funds), classification by functions, further work at the level of cultural institutions.
In parallel the work on Private expenditure should be continued (for example through the development of a classification/module for use in the Household Budget Surveys).
Next steps:
A Task Force should be established to continue the work in the areas of public and private expenditure on Culture. The Task Force shall have a new mandate. Although it would be very useful for the members of the present TF to take part in the new TF, the latter will need to be re-established to include acceding and candidate countries and take into account the present context for the organisation and financing of Task Forces by Eurostat.
The Task Force considered as well that the publication of first aggregated results could be possible by June. Therefore the survey respondents would receive in the week after the meeting the tables that have been established on the basis of the survey replies for a final validation. Replies should be sent to the survey co-ordinator (email: ) by the end of March.
The WG asked Eurostat to establish as soon as possible a regular request of statistics in this area so as to make maximum use of the significant mobilisation and quality improvements achieved at the national level through the survey.
3.Identifying possible synergies at the international level (agenda item 4)
Eurostat had pooled together all information on ongoing or planned international activities which could be considered relevant for Culture Statistics. The documentation (documents or hyperlinks) have been made available on the public ETCS circa web site and include:
Relevant activities of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2002 Intrernational Symposium on Culture Statistics) and of the Council of Europe and related networks (Cultural Policies in Europe: a compendium of basic facts and trends (ERICArts), Creative Europe Report, Cultural Heritage Information system (HEREIN) and Gender issues in arts and media professions) as well as links to other international specific projects (e.g. LibEcon – Project on Library Economics funded by the European Commission under the IST programme). Moreover some European Commission reports dealing with specific subjects in the cultural area have also been included (2001 - DG Employment: Job potential in the Cultural Sector, 2002 - DG Education and Culture – Mobility, 2003 - DG Enterprise - The EU Publishing Industry: an assessment of competitiveness) have been made available.
This exploratory work has confirmed that the only key actors at the international level in the area of production of Culture Statistics are Eurostat and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. The co-operation should also be further developed with the Council of Europe, an international actor involved in the development of monitoring activities for cultural policies which include a statistical element mainly from the perspective of the user.
The UIS representative in the WG has confirmed the particular interest of the organization in European Union work especially in the present phase of development of a conceptual framework for the future production of statistics and the review and development of the methodologies and data collection tools required for the implementation of a new Culture Statistics programme.
4.Exploring the current and future policy request (agenda item 5)
Eurostat has presented the results of a first analysis of the documents (Council Resolutions and decisions and European Parliament Resolutions) adopted in the last decade where a more or less explicit reference to the need for Culture Statistics was included. Links to all the documents used for this analysis are available on the public ETCS circa web site.
The representative of the Culture Unit of DG Education and Culture has presented the most recent developments in the area underlining the fact that the Cultural policy in Europe has been developed around two main poles: cultural co-operation, which is achieved mainly through the Culture 2000 action programme, and inclusion of culture in other policies, which is mainly implemented through the inclusion of culture in the European Structural Funds. The conclusion of recent work by the Commission in the framework of the follow-up of these activities has confirmed the impression that there is a lot of information available on Culture but is not collected/reported in a co-ordinated way. Appropriate classifications have not been used for the collection of information for reporting on the use of ESF for Culture and this made the analysis of results extremely difficult if not impossible in some cases.
The objective of the Commission for the near future is a more efficient and co-ordinated use of existing resources and sources for collecting qood quality statistical information, having in its centrer the European Statistical System and Eurostat, while developing in parallel other structures and networking arrangements to facilitating the exchange of information between cultural operators and other cultural policy actors at the national level.
5.First reflection on the future (agenda item 6)
Up to now the approach for Cultural Statistics has remained practically unchanged since time of the LEG[3] on Culture. The LEG Framework and the matrix for the delineation of the Cultural domain and the mapping of national activities with its two dimensions (Domains and Functions) is still accepted widely the basis for international statistics on Culture.
The focus was on analysing the “offer” side (Employment, Financing) and the “demand” side Participation, Expenditure) mainly across the “domains” dimension of the Framework. Eurostat proposed to maintain these aspects and use the work of the Task Forces on Participation and Employment and complete the work of the Task Force on expenditure (see under point 2), while at the same time including other aspects which become very important in the present context of cultural policy at the EU level. In particular Eurostat proposed to create a Task Force to explore Cultural Industries from an enterprise policy view, using existing EU level sources like the Structural Business Statistics, and a Task Force to explore the social and economic impact of culture.
Eurostat stressed that final proposal would be made after completing an ex-ante evaluation of the area of Culture Statistics on the basis of which an action plan will be established which may include the adoption of a legal basis. The proposal would then be submitted to the SPC[4].
The WG warmly welcomed the proposal by Eurostat stressing the need to establish as soon as an action plan so as to benefit from the momentum created through the activities of the Task Forces and the work of the Culture Statistics Working Group. It underlined the importance of exploring cultural industries form an economic perspective as well as the need for empirical data on the socio-economic impact of culture, although several participants warned about the complexity of this issue.
For the short to medium term the WG also stressed that the forthcoming revision of NACE was a particularly important issue for the future of Culture Statistics. According to the information provided by the Classifications Sector of Eurostat Culture is one of the domains for which only limited feedback has been provided by sector statisticians and therefore additional input was more than welcome. Eurostat will circulate to the Culture Statistics Working Group the draft proposal on ISIC (with the correspondence to NACE) when it is received from the Classifications Sector (probably beginning of April) and ask countries for comments. These comments will form the basis for the development of a final proposal by the Culture Statistics Working Group. This will be submitted in time for the consolidated comments to be submitted by Eurostat on all domains (mid-August).
6.Ex-ante evaluation for Culture Statistics
Eurostat will make an ex-ante evaluation on the establishment of the sustainable system for the production of quality statistics on culture, based on its first analysis and the discussions in the Culture Statistics Working Group. This analysis will cover the policy needs, the possible ways through which the European Statistical System can respond to them (tools) as well as an estimation of the cost (Human and financial resources) for the achievement of the objectives at EU and national level.
The results of this evaluation will be presented to the policy users and to the providers of Culture Statistics at the appropriate levels, with the aim to have a clear strategy for the future adopted by the end of the year.
7.Overall conclusions
Eurostat will consult the WG on the future revision of NACE concerning culture in April-May 2004.
The position of the Culture Statistics WG will be submitted in time for the submission of the consolidated comments by Eurostat in the framework of the NACE2007 consultation in August 2004.
The reports of the Task Forces on Participation, Employment and Expenditure have been in principle adopted by the WG. The will be finalized by June 2004.
The Working Group has been requested to send comments on the 3 TF reports an don’t he national figures produced on Cultural employment and public expenditure and financing of culture by the end of March to the TF co-ordinators.
The Working Group has agreed with the publication of aggregated data on Employment and Expenditure by Eurostat in summer 2004.
Eurostat will make an ex-ante evaluation on the establishment of a sustainable system of production of quality statistics on culture with the objective to present an action plan for culture statistics by December 2004.
8.Next meeting
The next meeting of the Culture Statistics Working Group is tentatively planned for the beginning of March 2005.
No further meetings of Task Forces or of the WG are currently planned until the end of 2004.
1
[1] Education, Training and Culture Statistics public circa web site. The link is:
[2] Classification Of Functions Of Government
[3] Leadership Group on Culture Statistics. It has been established in 1997 and delivered its final report in 2000. The reports is available as a Eurostat Working Paper.
[4] Statistical Programme Committee